Thursday, March 11, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell

 




Winter's Orbit is a Space Opera (M-M) Romance written by Everina Maxwell.  The novel, which began as a story on AO3, has been getting hyped up tremendously by the corners of the SF/F fandom I pay attention to on social media, so I was at first really excited for this - especially because of my growing love of SF/F Romance.  Still a friend of mine and fellow reviewer who got an early copy wasn't as enthused about this book as the general commentary seemed to be, noting that it wasn't what they had come to expect from the praise.  

And I see both viewpoints really.  A large part of this book for example is the charming story of two princes, each of which doesn't think the other could really be interested in the other, trying to make an arranged marriage work for the sake of the Empire and Territory they each come from, all the while dealing with occasional side things like a murder mystery along the way.  On the other hand, the story also attempts to deal with the ramifications of an abusive relationship and doesn't quite fully commit to this, despite hinting at it, until the final third of the book.  Similarly the book also kind of hint at dealing with the complications of Empire, only to chicken out on dealing with the actual implications of how that affects people and the central relationship of the story.  So I can see why some might really love this one, while others might find it not for them.  

Trigger Warning: Domestic/Physical Abuse/An Abusive Relationship described in flashback-esque scenes in detail.

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------
Prince Kiem of the Empire of Iskat enjoys his life of being a little-thought of Prince, known for tomfoolery and his occasional charity efforts for various causes.  But then the Emperor calls him in with an ultimatum: for the sake of the Empire, he must marry Count Jainan of Thea, one of Iskat's less prominent vassal planets.  Jainan is Thea's treaty representative to the Empire, a ceremonial role mean to assure the Resolution Auditor, the peacekeepers of inter-galactic relations, that Iskat is a well founded Empire.  But with the recent death of Jainen's husband, Kiem's distant cousin Taam, the treaty is now in jeopardy, threatening the Empire with potential ruin....if Kiem can't take his cousin's place as Jainen's new husband and satisfy the Auditor. 

And when Kiem and Jainen meet, the two can't seem to figure each other out - both are, unbeknownst to the other, attracted to the other, but the socially affable Kiem and the more introverted Jainen keep seem to be stepping on each other's toes.  Still, Kiem is determined to make it all work, for the sake of the Empire - no, for the sake of Jainen, whom he only wants to make happy.  But when the two discover that Taam's death was no accident, but a murder, and that Jainen might be a suspect, they find that making their relationship may not just be important to each other, and for the treaty, but for the sake of the Empire's entire future....
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Winter's Orbit is a space opera romance that features two very different leads, whose perspectives the book shifts back and forth between.  In Kiem, you have the easygoing, incredibly affable and social guy who is easy to love, even if he's frustratingly dense at politics, preferring to stay out of it even if that is really an impossibility.  In Jainen, you have a shy man - who quite quickly is apparently the survivor of at least a bit of abuse - who is afraid to speak out of his turn but who is highly intelligent (he has a PhD in engineering!) and caring if he can be convinced he has the right to speak his mind.  Both of them have issues understanding their own self-worth, especially Jainen (again, the abuse issue), and so the two are tremendously frustrating at times because each thinks the other one can't possibly be interested in the other since they think the other is so much better than they are themselves.  

This leads to a slow burn romance that is often incredibly charming, as the two try to deal with the other in a way that they think is best for the other, while miscommunicating CONSTANTLY over their own feelings for the other for like half the book.  You have many many of the classic tropes here - Only One Bed, Forced to Cuddle Together for Warmth in the Wilderness, etc. etc. - and Maxwell works them in extremely well.  The Space Opera politics and the mystery works well to the point it allows this romance to come together and to proceed at this slow pace without ever becoming frustrating, and for much of the book, I was smiling quite a bit at how it all came together.  

It's where Winter's Orbit tires to deal with other things that it kind of fails and definitely frustrates.  Most significantly this is with the tale of abuse and Jainen's arc of having to find a way to move past it.  It's obvious from the start that Jainen's past relationship was at least partially abusive, resulting in him being extremely closed-off from everyone and afraid to take any initiative without being given permission first.  But we see Jainen's point of view....and despite that he NEVER thinks about the actual abuse in his mind.  Which would make sense if it was the type of abuse one could deny to themselves, or if they were completely non-functional, but it's not and he's not, as we see in some really descriptive scenes in the latter half of the book.  The storyline of Kiem helping Jainen get over the abuse works, even if the mechanism in the end is a bit contrived, but how the book treats this as a reveal also doesn't quite work.

The book also has a setting of a planetary Empire, even if not a strong one from a galactic perspective, featuring a conquering central planet where one protagonist (Kiem) is from and a conquered - if not militarily - planet where the other protagonist (Jainen) is from.  This is a pretty big theme these days, that other books have tackled or attempted to tackle - for example, another M-M space opera romance from last year, Emily Skrutskie's Bonds of Brass, tries to tackle this and how it affects both people in general and the uneven balance of the romance.  Winter's Orbit....basically doesn't, with the book coming up with a last minute swerve to magically cap off the problems of Empire without any difficulty.  It's just kind of disappointing when other books have handled this so much better.  

So yeah, Winter's Orbit is absolutely a charming M-M space opera on one hand, while also being a frustrating story of abuse and empire that doesn't quite know how to properly handle it in the end.  I can see why others have loved this, but it just doesn't pull everything off enough as I might have hoped.  

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